Asia Pacific Report
The national chair of one of New Zealand’s leading pro-Palestine advocacy groups has condemned New Zealand over remaining “totally silent” over Israeli military and diplomatic attacks on the United Nations, blaming this on a “refusal to offend” Tel Aviv.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) chair John Minto said he was appalled at the New Zealand response to the Israeli parliamentary vote last week to ban UNRWA operations in Israel and East Jerusalem.
The Israeli government followed up on this today by cancelling the UNRWA agreement, effectively closing down the major Palestinian refugee aid organisation’s desperately needed work in the Gaza Strip.
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“UNRWA was set up by the United Nations to assist the hundreds of thousands Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel in 1948, pending their right of return — which Israel refuses to recognise,” Minto said in a statement.
“Israel sees UNRWA as an unwelcome reminder of Palestinian national rights and has always aimed to get rid of it. Support for banning UNRWA came from the Zionist New Zealand Jewish Council earlier this year.”
Israel has also recently shelled United Nations peacekeeping positions in Lebanon and has killed an estimated 230 UNRWA workers in Gaza.
“Our government has previously stated how important UNRWA relief work is for Palestinian refugees in Gaza. The US government says the UNRWA supply of food, water and medicine is ‘irreplaceable’,” Minto said.
NZ role ‘shallow, non-existent’
“Yet, under no doubt as a result of Israeli lobbying, our commitment to the UN and its work is increasingly exposed as somewhere between shallow and non-existent.”
Israel cancels agreement with UNRWA. Video: Al Jazeera
Minto said other Western governments had been critical of the UNRWA ban and the recent Israeli refusal to allow the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to enter Israel.
Despite New Zealand having UN peacekeepers in the Lebanon border areas, it failed to join more than 40 countries which condemned the military attacks on a number of UNIFIL bases in south Lebanon last month.
“Our government refuses to offend Israel in any way. Even major arms suppliers to Israel, particularly the US, France and the UK, have been sometimes critical of what is a genocide by Israel in Gaza,” Minto said.
“In contrast, the New Zealand government blames Hamas for all the killing and destruction committed by Israel, though it also finds space to condemn Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran.”
Previous New Zealand governments have formally rebuked Israel for its violence, most recently former Foreign Minister Murry McCully in 2010 and former Prime Minister John Key in 2014 — “both by summoning in the Israeli ambassador”.
“This time, when Israeli attacks on Gaza are becoming even more savage and sadistic by the day, our Foreign Minister and his government remains inactive and silent,” Minto said.
Israeli ethnic cleansing
He said the Israeli war crimes in Gaza now clearly included ethnic cleansing.
“Reports of what is called the Israeli ‘General’s Plan’ are now widespread in our news media,” Minto said.
“The General’s Plan is a vile combination of military assault, starvation and exclusion of both aid workers and news media, to hide and facilitate the ‘death march’ of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from north of the Netzarim Corridor.
“This is to prepare for a resumption of illegal Israeli colonisation in northern Gaza.”
“In September, our government voted with 123 other countries for a UN General Assembly resolution to demand that Israel withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories without delay.”
“That was welcome.”
“What is not welcome is for New Zealand to then stand by when genocidal Israel carries out ethnic cleansing on a massive scale to once again spit on the UN and increase its occupation of Palestinian lands.”
